Processing microseismic data

Abstract

A method for processing microseismic data in which microseismic data is received and a filter is applied to the microseismic data. The filter is designed to whiten the frequency spectrum of the microseismic data. The filter may be a deconvolution filter. The method may allow for a very weak signal of interest to be identified in the microseismic data, even where it would have been very difficult or even impossible to identify the signal of interest in the microseismic data prior to applying the filter to the microseismic data.

1 . A method for processing microseismic data, comprising:
 receiving the microseismic data;   applying a filter to the microseismic data, wherein the filter is configured to whiten the frequency spectrum of the microseismic data.   
     
     
         2 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
 identifying a signal of interest caused by a microseismic event in the microseismic data to which the filter has been applied, wherein the signal of interest was not identified prior to applying the filter to the microseismic data.   
     
     
         3 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein the filter applied to the microseismic data is a deconvolution filter. 
     
     
         4 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein the deconvolution filter applied to the microseismic data is a spiked deconvolution filter. 
     
     
         5 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein the method further comprises:
 before applying the deconvolution filter to the microseismic data, configuring the deconvolution filter using a design time-window, wherein the design time-window comprises a portion of microseismic data that influences the deconvolution filter.   
     
     
         6 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein the portion of microseismic data selected as the design time-window has a duration of 4 seconds or more. 
     
     
         7 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein the deconvolution filter applied to the microseismic data is a single channel filter. 
     
     
         8 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein a length and/or starting position of the design time-window is/are determined without reference to a signal of interest in the microseismic data. 
     
     
         9 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein a length and/or starting position of the design time-window is/are determined before identifying a signal of interest in the microseismic data. 
     
     
         10 . A method according to  claim 3 , further comprising:
 applying a bandpass filter to the microseismic data to only allow a range of selected frequencies to contribute to the processed microseismic data;   
     
     
         11 . A method according to  claim 3 , further comprising:
 coherently removing of noise from the microseismic data.   
     
     
         12 . A method according to  claim 3 , further comprising:
 after applying the filter, processing the microseismic data to determine properties of/parameters related to a subsurface section of the earth.   
     
     
         13 . A method for processing microseismic data, comprising:
 Receiving the microseismic data; and   applying the deconvolution filter to the microseismic data.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising:
 Processing the filtered microseismic data to determine properties of and/or parameters associated with a subterranean section of the earth.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the deconvolution filter comprises a gapped deconvolution filter and the filter is designed using received noise. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the deconvolution filter comprises a spiking deconvolution and the filter is designed using received noise. 
     
     
         17 . The method according to  claim 13 , wherein the received noise is measured by one or more seismic receivers. 
     
     
         18 . The method according to  claim 13 , wherein the received noise comprises a dominant part of the received microseismic data. 
     
     
         19 . The method according to  claim 13 , wherein the received noise is considered to be repetitive in nature. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein properties of the repetition are used in the design of the deconvolution filter. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the deconvolution filter is configured to filter recurring elements in the received microseismic data. 
     
     
         22 . A method for acquiring and processing microseismic data, wherein the method includes:
 using a plurality of receivers to acquire microseismic data; and   a method for processing the microseismic data according to  claim 13 .   
     
     
         23 . A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions configured to cause a computer to perform a method according  claim 13 . 
     
     
         24 . An apparatus for acquiring and/or processing microseismic data, wherein the apparatus includes a processing device configured to perform a method according to  claim 1 . 
     
     
         25 . (canceled)